


Fell Out of Bed, Butterfly Bandage, But Don't Worry

by mahoni



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance, Panic At The Disco, Young Veins
Genre: Abduction, Alternate Universe - Spy, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sexual Tension, Torture, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-22
Updated: 2010-01-22
Packaged: 2017-10-06 13:27:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mahoni/pseuds/mahoni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spencer is a spy and Jon has been kidnapped by Russian mobsters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fell Out of Bed, Butterfly Bandage, But Don't Worry

**Author's Note:**

> Based on an idea from foxxcub @ LJ.

Jon was counting backwards from one thousand. He'd started at a hundred earlier but it went too fast and was too easy. Counting backwards from a thousand took more concentration.

It didn't make him hurt less, but it was a distraction.

_...seven-hundred thirty-three, seven-hundred thirty-two, seven-hundred...Spencer is a spy, Spencer is a fucking _secret agent_ and they are going to kill me Jesus Christ -- no, seven-hundred and...seven-hundred and...shit._

Okay, it wasn't a perfect distraction.

Jon pressed his head harder against the wall, sucking air in through his nose as his heart started racing again. _Calm down calm down calm down --_ Hyperventilating with duct tape over his mouth and his nose mostly clogged with blood was kind of terrifying, in that breathing was very fucking hard. Jon knew this from recent experience. Last time he'd passed out. He didn't want to pass out again. Not while he was in the closet anyway.

_One thousand, nine-hundred ninety-nine, nine-hundred ninety-eight, nine-hundred ninety-seven, nine-hundred ninety-six..._

He counted through the light-headedness, counted his breathing down to something less hysterical, kept counting and watched the thin line of light beneath the closet door. He could hear a couple of his kidnappers talking far off, a distant, hollow sound with a faint echo to it as their voices rebounded through the warehouse. He was pretty sure someone was sitting right outside the closet door, too. Every now and then he thought he heard a creak, like someone shifting in a chair, and maybe a rustle like the page of a book being turned.

What he was listening for was footsteps and the jingle of keys. That was a sound he'd only heard twice, but he'd learned pretty fast what it meant.

_... nine-hundred seventy-one, nine-hundred seventy, nine-hundred --_

There it was.

Voices came with the footsteps and the sound of a handful of keys. Jon couldn't understand what they were saying. That was typical. Mostly they spoke in Russian, unless they were talking directly to him. Even when they spoke into the camera for Spencer they spoke Russian. Probably because Spencer knew Russian. Because Spencer was apparently James Bond.

A giggle bubbled up in Jon's chest. He tried to imagine Spencer in a tux being all suave and secret-agent-y, but it didn't work. In Jon's mind Spencer still looked like he had the last time Jon had actually seen him, sweet-faced and dorky. Tom had always said Spencer looked like an angry lesbian. _An angry lesbian with a gun,_ Jon thought, fighting down the laugh fluttering in his stomach. _I wonder if he knows Kung Fu --_

A key being jammed in the closet door's lock blanked out everything in Jon's brain. He even forgot how to count. The rush of fear sent his heart banging in his chest and this time he didn't try to not hyperventilate. Passing out would be fine now. He felt pretty sure he'd rather be unconscious for whatever was going to happen next.

Everything was going black around the edges when the door opened and dirty sunlight spilled in. Then the room spun and something whacked him in the shoulder and the back, and a burning sting across his cheeks and mouth made him gasp.

Gasp a lot. Because suddenly there was air. Things started swimming back into focus, and he realized somebody had ripped the tape off his mouth.

_Air._ He hadn't had access to so much air in hours. Possibly days. However long it had been since he was grabbed off the sidewalk. His chest felt bruised and sent sharp aches through him with every breath, but he couldn't stop himself from panting.

Feet in front of him -- he was lying on the floor on his side, the concrete cold against his face -- and then the skinny guy with the bad teeth knelt in front of him and patted his cheek roughly.

"Feeling better now?" The guy grinned. His accent was heavy, but weirdly fluid, making his voice sound like a croon. It creeped Jon right the fuck out. "It get a little stuffy in there, yeah? Okay."

Another pat to Jon's cheek, and the guy stood and stepped over him, moving off to do something behind where Jon lay. Jon stayed put and didn't watch him.

In front of him, the camera guy was setting up the computer and fiddling with the settings on his hand-held digital camera. They'd told Jon the first time they brought him out to film him what was going on: they were sending Spencer live video feeds of the things they did to him. They said it wasn't personal, it was just something they needed to settle between themselves and "Mr. Smith."

If Jon had been braver and hadn't had his mouth taped shut he might have argued the 'it's not personal' point, because it felt awfully damn personal to him. Instead he'd had to just sit there being weirded out by the way 'Mr. Smith' sounded when a scary, masked Russian guy said it, and when it didn't refer to Spencer's dad. When it meant 'Mr. Spencer Smith, Secret fucking Agent.'

Then the masked Russian guy had wrapped a soft, thick length of cloth around Jon's neck and strangled him very slowly for the camera, and Jon had stopped thinking about anything other than _I am going to die._

He hadn't died, of course. He'd woken up with a sore throat and a splitting headache, locked in the closet. Then a little while later they took him out of the closet for another home movie. And then he'd been unconscious, and then he'd woken up in the closet hurting in all sorts of new places. And now here he was again. He wondered how many more times they'd lather, rinse, repeat.

("Don't worry," the camera man had said before the second time. "Your friend will find you soon. We make it not too hard. He come alone like we tell him to and then it will be all over."

At first Jon had been horrified at the thought, and he'd stared into the camera and tried to will Spencer not to come, to stay away. Jon was not a fucking hero, though. A little pain had changed his mind. The blood pounding in his ears and the screams he couldn't get enough air in to let out had turned into a chorus of _Spencer please, please Spencer please please come_ running non-stop through his head.

It occurred to Jon now that with the tape off he'd probably say all of that out loud -- the screaming and the begging. He hoped to God that Spencer wouldn't be ashamed of him. Or worse, feel guilty and come.)

A boot on his shoulder rolled him over onto his back. His hands were tied; they caught under him, and his weight on his broken fingers shocked a yell out of him. He arched his back, trying to shift up or over to get off his hands, but the skinny Russian held him pinned.

The Russian was masked again, and for a moment he ignored Jon and said something to the cameraman, or maybe to the camera. Then he looked down at Jon and showed Jon what he was holding.

It was an actual, honest to god fucking cattle prod.

Jon laughed.

He didn't mean to. He was lying there writhing in pain and tears were running down his face and it was _so_ not a situation to laugh at. But. A cattle prod.

It was kind of absurd.

Or maybe laughing was just the other side of the coin from hysterical, pathetic screaming.

"This is funny?"

The Russian sounded like he was smiling under his mask. Somehow, that was scarier than it would have been if he'd sounded angry.

Jon shuddered. "No," he gasped. "No. It's really not."

The last couple of words came out half-sobbed and too loud, and nearly drowned out the faint, distant _chink_ of breaking glass. Jon didn't even realize what he'd heard until later. When it happened, the Russian's arm dropped and the tip of the cattle prodded thumped against Jon's stomach as it fell from the Russian's hand. Jon was too distracted bracing himself for pain that didn't come to recognize the sound of a bullet punching a hole through a window.

Jon watched the skinny Russian waver and collapse, almost in slow motion, right on top of him.

Suddenly everything was chaos. There was shouting from outside the warehouse, and gunfire; that set off shouting inside the warehouse. Shouting, running footsteps; a crash and then more shouting and shooting until it all blended into a deafening roar. Blood was pooling beneath the skinny Russian's head, and Jon could see his eyes, glassy and blank, through the mask's eye holes.

_Closet_, Jon thought. _Closet closetclosetcloset --_

The dead Russian had landed draped across Jon's midsection. Jon squirmed onto his side, and kicked and shoved with his feet while he thrashed and heaved to get the corpse to shift, to get out from under it. He couldn't breathe, but that was fairly low priority. There was a corpse laying on him. If he couldn't get it off soon the inability to breathe wouldn't matter because Jon would probably lose his mind.

Finally only his feet were still trapped. He started breathing again and told himself _closet. Closet has a door. Get in the closet. Hide_. It didn't occur to him that he didn't really know which direction the closet was in; the part of his brain in charge of working out how to crawl with his hands and feet bound and people shooting all around him had decided that 'away from the corpse' was where the closet was, so that's where he tried to go.

Movement out of the corner of his eyes made him freeze. Somebody lunged for him, and before he could jerk away caught hold of his arm in a vice-like grip.

He tried to twist away, but he couldn't get coordinated. He was trapped between a dead guy and a guy shouting and shoving at him. He was tied up and he couldn't _move_, he couldn't _do anything_.

Now there were two people yelling, and the guy who'd grabbed his shoulder was pushing him face down to the ground. Heavy weight settled on his back, sending stabbing pain through his chest, and an arm held him tight. Two things struck him all at once: firstly, that one of the people yelling was him; and also, that the other person had stopped yelling and was saying over and over, low and urgent with warm breath against his ear, "Jon, it's okay, it's me, it's Spencer, it's okay, I've got you."

*

Things settled down considerably in the warehouse once all of the Russians were dead. People talked in low voices here and there, but around that was a silence that rang in Jon's ears.

The sound of footsteps approaching made him shiver even though he knew it wouldn't be someone bad. Nobody bad had survived, according to Spencer.

A big blonde guy knelt beside Spencer and Jon. He had 'FBI' on his jacket; where the jacket hung open Jon could see a bulletproof vest underneath it, fitted over a hooded sweatshirt.

"Paramedics are almost here," he said. He didn't sound like a killer FBI guy. Plus he had freckles and very blue eyes and Jon suspected that without the pale beard scruff he'd probably look about twelve years old. But he had one arm propped on his knee and the shiny semi-automatic handgun was a natural fit in his hand.

Above Jon, Spencer nodded. "Thanks."

The guy shot Spencer an unreadable look, gave Jon a small, but kind, smile and stood to go.

"And --" Spencer said. When the guy paused and looked down at him, Spencer met his gaze and said, again, "Thank you."

Jon must have let his eyes slip closed, because he didn't know if Spencer got a response to that, or explained what the second thank you was for. When he opened his eyes, it was just him and Spencer again, alone at the center of the activity all around them.

It was harder to breathe when Jon lay flat on his back so he was curled almost on his side, with his head in Spencer's lap. After Spencer had cut Jon's hands free Jon had tucked his one arm against his stomach, and made himself not look at his hand. He really did not want to know what it looked like to have a set of broken fingers.

At some point, after getting Jon settled, Spencer had rested his hand lightly on Jon's shoulder. Jon had grabbed it with his good hand. If the cold, numb feeling taking over his hand was anything to go by, he was holding on way too tight. He couldn't make himself let go, though.

Now and then Spencer would trail his fingers through Jon's hair. Even more rarely, he'd actually look down at Jon, and almost meet his eyes.

The next time he did that, Jon said, "You don't look like an angry lesbian anymore."

He cringed a little, because the words came out in a pathetic, wobbly whisper. But Spencer blinked at him, caught off guard, and the dark, haggard look around his eyes lightened for just a second.

"An angry lesbian?" Spencer said. "What the hell?"

Smiling would hurt, so Jon didn't. "Tom. When you still lived in Chicago? Tom said. You looked like an angry lesbian."

Spencer laughed, short and sharp.

"He was kind of right," Jon said. He tried to look sympathetic. "Sorry."

"Oh, thanks," Spencer said. He stroked his fingers self-consciously over the beard growth on his cheek. "God, I have no idea why I ever thought clean-shaven was a good look for me."

"It was," Jon said. "But this is too." He hesitated, less because he was unsure, more because his head felt blurry, and his tongue had started feeling weird and thick. "Was it because of the spy thing? You had to look older?"

The weariness seeped back into Spencer's expression and he looked away. "I guess."

"Accountant," Jon said. "For a multi-national conglomerate."

That made color rise up in Spencer's cheeks. He shrugged uncomfortably. "Well. It fit."

"I believed it," Jon said. "Totally believed you would do something boring. Accounting. Wow. So far off, huh."

He wasn't angry. Or at least, he didn't think he was angry. He thought he was mostly surprised. Kind of fascinated. A lot freaked out. But despite the body armor and the beard and the fact that Spencer was carrying _a gun_, he was still Spencer. Same face, same blue eyes, same warmth that made Jon want to lean into him and soak it up.

Hell, he was even wearing a faded pink t-shirt under his bulletproof vest. Definitely Spencer.

"Ireland," Jon said.

Spencer glanced down at him. "What?"

"You called me from Ireland once."

"Oh," Spencer said. He looked away again. "Yeah."

"What were you doing there?" Jon said. He was starting to feel sleepy. He was starting to feel _safe_. He needed Spencer to talk to him; if anything would tip him over into believing everything was really okay, listening to Spencer talk would be it. Jon squeezed Spencer's hand. "Please. Tell me?"

"I can't really..." Spencer said. "It was. It had to do with illegal weapons sales. I can't give you details."

"Anything. Tell me anything." A clang and the squeal of squeaky doors made Jon jump. "The -- the Loch Ness Monster. Did you see it?"

Spencer snorted softly. "The Loch Ness Monster's in Scotland, dude. Ireland is leprechauns and rainbows and stuff."

Loud rattling echoed through the warehouse, getting closer to them. Stroking the backs of his fingers against Jon's temple, Spencer said, "That's just the paramedics. Hey. Jon? Take a breath, okay?"

Jon hadn't realized he was holding his breath. He let it out, and when Spencer said, "There you go. Just, keep breathing, relax," Jon did as he was told. At least, he breathed. He didn't really relax until the EMT crouched in front of him and didn't turn into a Russian mobster.

*

Spencer took a step back when the EMTs got ready to load Jon and his stretcher into the ambulance.

"Wait," Jon said. The EMTs didn't hear him, or they ignored him, so he flung his functioning hand out and tried to catch Spencer's arm.

"I can't come with," Spencer said. "I have to stay here and wrap things up. But you'll be okay."

Whatever was in the IV drip was making Jon feel distant and floaty. It made it hard to figure exactly why Jon was certain that he wouldn't be okay unless Spencer came to the hospital with him. Maybe because Spencer was a spy and had a gun. And possibly knew Kung Fu?

Maybe because it was Spencer, and Jon had been needing him for a long time. He wasn't sure. Something. Some reason.

"You have to come," Jon said. His words didn't sound right. It was his tongue's fault; his tongue was tired. "You have to."

For a horrible second Jon was sure Spencer was going to say no. 'I can't' was all over Spencer's face, and in Spencer's eyes.

"Yeah," Spencer said quietly. "Yeah, I'll be there. Later. Okay?"

The stretcher jerked and hoisted up a little, and before Jon could work out how to say "You have to promise," he was in the ambulance. The doors closed Spencer out. When they didn't open up again, and he felt the ambulance start to move, Jon thought _You have to promise_ in Spencer's general direction. Then he gave in and let sleep take him.

*

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Disloyal Order of Water Buffaloes" by Fall Out Boy.


End file.
